The Fedora 15 "Lovelock" Alpha release is available! This release
offers a preview of some of the best free and open source technology
currently under development. Catch a glimpse of the future:
http://fedoraproject.org/get-prerelease
*** What is the Alpha release? ***
The Alpha release contains all the beefy features of Fedora 15 in a
form that anyone can help test. This testing, guided by the Fedora QA
team, helps us target and identify bugs. When these bugs are fixed, we
make a Beta release available. A Beta release is code-complete, and
bears a very strong resemblance to the third and final release. The
final release of Fedora 15 is due in May.
We need your help to make Fedora 15 the best release yet, so please
take a moment of your time to download and try out the Alpha and make
sure the things that are important to you are working. If you find a
bug, please report it -- every bug you uncover is a chance to improve
the experience for millions of Fedora users worldwide. Together, we
can make Fedora a rock-solid distribution. (Read down to the end of
the announcement for more information on how to help.)
*** Features ***
This release of Fedora includes a variety of features both over and
under the hood that show off the power and flexibility of the
advancing state of free software. Examples include:
* Updated Desktop Environments. Fedora 15 will ship with GNOME 3, the
next major version of the GNOME desktop. If you're interested in other
experiences, KDE and Xfce will also be showcasing the latest and
greatest in desktop technology from their respective projects.
* System and session management. Previously available as a technology
preview in F14, systemd makes its full-fledged debut in Fedora 15.
systemd is a smarter, more efficient way of starting up and managing
the background daemons relied on by services we all use every day -
such as NetworkManager and PulseAudio.
* Cloud. Looking to create appliances for use in the Cloud? BoxGrinder
creates appliances (virtual machines) for various platforms (KVM, Xen,
EC2) from simple plain text appliance definition files for various
virtual platforms.
* Updated programming languages and tools. Fedora 15 features new
versions of Rails, OCaml, and Python. GDB and GCC have also been
updated. (Fedora 15 was built with GCC 4.6.0, too!)
* Productivity Applications. LibreOffice is filled with tools for
everyday use, including word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation
applications.
* Consistent Network Device Naming. Server management just got even
easier. Fedora 15 uses BIOS-provided, non-arbitrarily given names for
network ports, taking the burden off of system administrators.
* Dynamic Firewall. Fedora 15 adds support for the optional firewall
daemon, that provides a dynamic firewall management with a D-Bus
interface.
* eCryptfs in Authconfig. Fedora 15 brings in improved support for
eCryptfs, a stacked cryptographic filesystem for Linux. Starting with
Fedora 15, authconfig can be used to automatically mount a private
encrypted part of the home directory when a user logs in.
* DNSSEC for workstations. NetworkManager now uses the BIND nameserver
as a DNSSEC resolver. All received DNS responses are proved to be
correct. If particular domain is signed and failed to validate then
resolver returns SERFVAIL instead of invalidated response, which means
something is wrong.
* Go Green. Power Management improvements include the PowerTOP tool,
which identifies the software components that make your computer use
more energy than necessary while idle. Automatic tuning of power
consumption and performance helps conserve on laptop battery usage,
too!
* Business Management tools. Tryton is a three-tier high-level general
purpose application platform, providing solutions for accounting,
invoicing, sale management, purchase management, analytic accounting,
and inventory management.
* New Package Suite Groups. The Graphics suite group has been renamed
to the Design group, and the Robotics SIG has created the Robotics
Package Suite, a collection of software that provides an
out-of-the-box usable robotic simulation environment featuring a
linear demo to introduce new users.
These and many other improvements provide a wide and solid base for
future releases, further increasing the range of possibilities for
developers and helping to maintain Fedora's position at the leading
edge of free and open source technology.
A more complete list and details of each new cited feature is available here:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/15/FeatureList
We have nightly composes of alternate spins available here:
http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/nightly-composes/
*** Issues and Details ***
For more information including common and known bugs, tips on how to
report bugs, and the official release schedule, please refer to the
release notes:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_15_Alpha_release_notes
A shorter list of common bugs can be found here:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F15_bugs
*** Contributing ***
Bug reports are helpful, especially for Alpha. If you encounter any
issues please report them and help make this release of Fedora the
best ever.
Thank you, and we hope to see you in the Fedora project!
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